C. Effects on other ecosystems

What are the effects of antibiotic residues on bacterial organisms
in soil and water?

Veterinary antibiotics are designed to kill or
inhibit bacterial pathogens found in animals and people, but they
certainly can also be hazardous to many types of non-targeted
environmental microorganisms41. High “therapeutic”
concentrations of antibiotics tend to be quickly lethal to susceptible
bacterial strains, providing limited opportunity for selection of
subpopulations that have low or intermediate resistant traits. In
contrast, low-level antibiotic concentration as are typically found in
soil and water, may be more likely to enable to the selection of
resistant environmental microorganisms, thereby fueling the
environmental resistant gene pool or “resistome”.

What are the effects of antibiotic residues on plants and
invertebrates?

The overall ecologic impacts of residual antibiotics in the
environment are largely unknown. However, antibiotics have been
reported to markedly hurt plant growth and development, causing
inhibition of germination, inhibition of root growth and inhibition of
shoot growth42. Residues have also shown toxicity
to aquatic organisms such as
freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna43 and
Artemia spp. 44.